Shopping Tips and Guidance by Mandy Claire

Welcome to "The Gods Are Bored," deliberating with downsized deities since 2005! If you're a late arrival here, you've parked curbside just in the nick of time! We're having a good ol' bored god tent revival in response to a hornet's nest of theocrats bent upon making One Nation under God a legal reality.

This benign little group is called DC40, and they're rather tied in to Rick Perry. You can read all about it over at The Wild Hunt Blog. Just click my sidebar and follow the tags.

DC40 began on October 3 to concentrate black magic prayer intentions toward Hawaii. Every day the group will direct their black magic odd bell-ringing prayers toward another state, going backwards to (I presume they know their history) modest little Delaware. They plan an 11-day visit to Philadelphia in November.

That's in the future. We've got to concentrate on the here and now. And with that, I have another bored Goddess here with me today. Please give a warm, wonderful "Gods Are Bored" welcome to Sedna, Sacred Goddess of the Inuit Peoples!

Sedna: Goodness, it's warm here! Is October always like this in New Jersey?

Anne: Actually we're finally getting somewhat seasonal temperatures. It has been very warm and rainy here for the past month and a half. Dear Goddess, let me go make you a nice bucket of ice water. Home Sweet Home and all that.

Sedna: Thank you.

Anne: Sedna, just FYI, here's what the folks at DC40 wrote about Alaska on their web site:

On October 4, it will be Alaska’s turn to take the point position of leading intercession in releasing the power of eternal light over our nation’s capital, with the strength of the other 49 standing as one alongside her.

Sedna: The power of eternal light? From Alaska? In mid-winter we hardly get any light at all! Even now the days are getting shorter by the eye-blink. If I have anything to say about it, Alaska will not be releasing any light that we need ourselves to get prepared for the long winter ahead.

Anne: A highly sensible strategy, Great Goddess.

Sedna: And frankly, my praise and worship team has little fondness for the "other 49." The other 49? All they want from us is cheap oil, at any cost to My pristine wilderness. What's the name of that guy who's interested in getting Alaska to secede from the "other 49?"

Anne: Todd Palin?

Sedna: Yeah, I think he's one of them. Not that I want a moron like him in charge of anything, but my praise and worship team would be peachy keen on dumping the other 49. And keeping the oil in the ground, where it won't poison waterways and kill wildlife.

Anne: Speaking of the Palins, what have you to say about Sarah?

Sedna: Took care of her.

Anne: What?

Sedna: Did you see how foolish she made herself look? She's not that stupid. But when you run at cross-purposes to Sedna, She will rattle your brain.

Anne: You're taking credit for Sarah's precipitous fall from power?

Sedna: Well, Anne, it's like this. If DC40 and its ilk think that they can influence people with prayer, then guess what? So can the followers of Sedna! My praise and worship team prayed constantly that Sarah Palin would tank like a stone, and so she has done. And now ...

Anne: Oooo OOOOO oooo! SQUEEEEE! Rick Perry's big chums with the DC40 crowd! Is he tripping up due to the prayers of the followers of the bored gods?

Sedna: Bored gods and busy gods. Krishna is livid.

Anne: I hope we can reassure Krishna, and the Buddhists, and even the sane and sober Methodists, that this nation will remain pluralistic, embracing the great variety of people who live here and their varieties of religious experience.

Sedna: Yes, fine, pluralistic is fine, but can I get some respect for My people? Can you imagine living for millennia in one of the most hostile wilderness areas on the planet, and then being told your deities are inferior to some god who lives the soft life in the Fertile Crescent?

Anne: Good point. God's followers would not doubt credit Him with the ability to construct an igloo, but I'm skeptical.

Sedna: Me too. It's harder than it looks on those National Geographic specials.

Anne: Sedna, I have some ice cream down in the freezer. Would you like a banana split?

Sedna: No thank you. Pairing bananas and ice cream is like pairing palm trees and glaciers. Just doesn't seem right to me somehow.

Anne: Well, thank you for dropping in. We at "The Gods Are Bored" are going to lift up a prayer for You and Yours. Good luck with that long, cold winter!

Sedna: We are used to them. It's how we roll.



My dear friends, let us face Alaska and pray to Great Sedna:

"Oh gentle Sedna of the Arctic,
We pray for the protection of Your people and their way of life.
May they always reach out to You for the certain protection of their millennial ways.
Gentle Sedna, feel our concern for Your lands,
That they be held sacred.
That they not be broken in a scramble for profits.
That they hold the magnificent winter wilderness.
Go into the peaceful darkness, dear Sedna.
The light is for You and Your people.

All hail Sedna. All hail the First Amendment of the U.S. Constitution. Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion.


Artwork by the absolutely incomparable Thalia Took.

It's hard work being Rush Limbaugh. He has such a difficult time holding onto his "moron of the universe" title when there are so many other hard-working morons trying to unseat him. Nevertheless, he manages to do it. No doubt the opiate derivative medications help keep him sharp.

Earlier this week, the Limbaugh pestilence described the build-up to Hurricane Irene as "hype" created by the media. I guess hurricanes should be ignored unless they can completely decimate a city and leave a million people homeless.

We at "The Gods Are Bored" join the throng of Hurricane Irene victims calling Limbaugh's remarks EPIC FAIL.

Case in point: Yesterday I went for a walk along the murky little waterway near my house. The entire floodplain looked like someone had plastered it with mud. All vegetation was flattened and battered. As I perused this sad landscape, I stepped sideways on a hill, slipped on some muck, and fell on my face. (Actually I fell on my titanium hip and all that side of my body, and then on my face.)

So there I sat, checking for broken bones, plastered with New Jersey mud, and cursing myself for being clumsy ... and within 30 seconds I was beset by a swarm of mosquitoes.

Bitten, muddy, and humbled, I limped home.

Deep within the primal stem of my brain, at its lowest level of functionality, I must have believed Rush Limbaugh and considered the hurricane talk just so much blah blah blah. Why else would I choose to stroll along a floodplain just days after a catastrophic meteorological event?

The moral of this sermon is so simple even a moron could understand it. If the media calls it a dangerous hurricane, and you look outside and the weather's atrocious, and the fire sirens bleat at all hours for the next three days, and you can't walk a path because it's inches deep in slippery mud,  it must indeed be as the media says: a dangerous hurricane.

Words of wisdom, wasted on the wise. Morons don't read "The Gods Are Bored."


Photo credit: http://haddonfield.patch.com/users/bill-duhart

Welcome to "The Gods Are Bored!" When choosing a deity to worship, keep in mind the way you dress. Some deities like for you to gussy up a bit. Others will take you as you came into the world. Personally I like deities who choose comfort over style. It's just how I roll.

During prom season last spring, Heir, Spare and I were treated horribly in a local dress emporium called Jan's Boutique. It was the busy season, and we went in the store, and a saleslady took one look at us and steered us straight to the cheapest gowns, saying, "I don't think you want to spend $3,000 on a dress, right? Unless maybe you do." (The last said in a very condescending manner.)

This is nothing to the story going viral right now out of dear old New Jersey. A clueless salon in Somer's Point canceled the sale of a bridal dress when they discovered that the purchaser had crossed out "groom" on the application and wrote "partner" instead. In a voice message on a phone, the store owner told the bride-to-be that the store wouldn't participate in anything "illegal," and what the bride was trying to do was "illegal."

I've heard of laws in my time, folks, but have you ever heard of a law against purchasing a bridal gown?

Anyway, the lesbian bride-to-be went ballistic, since she really loved the dress she tried on in the shop. She contacted the Philadelphia Daily News, and now the sad tale has gone viral.

Here's the pathetic, whimpering damage control offered up by the beleaguered shop owner:

http://philadelphia.cbslocal.com/2011/08/19/somers-point-bridal-shop-owner-denies-anti-lesbian-claim/#respond

The owner certainly got cussed out, and rightly so, but it wasn't during the try-on. It was after the spurned customer got the telephone message that her custom not only was not wanted, but also it was "illegal."

What is it with these people in high-end dress shops? Can they afford to be discriminatory and insulting in their selling practices? If so, why am I teaching school? Their businesses must be booming! If they can turn customers down, or steer them to shoddy merchandise, without thought of profit, they must be comfortable indeed.

We at "The Gods Are Bored" hereby designate Here Comes the Bride, of Somers Point, NJ "moron store of the month." Feel free to let them know what you think.

The only hope this sorry establishment has of staying in business is to relocate. Saudi Arabia springs to mind.

Welcome to "The Gods Are Bored!" Are you a libertarian ... someone who would like the government entirely and completely off your ass in all matters public and private? If so, you may have some interesting housing options in the future.

We all know how Anne sucks at linking, so.....

http://news.yahoo.com/blogs/lookout/silicon-valley-billionaire-funding-creation-artificial-libertarian-islands-140840896.html

The gazillionaire founder of PayPal, who is also heavily invested in Facebook, wants to create artificial libertarian islands in international waters. These islands would obey the laws of no country. Guns would be permitted, welfare not.

Can you imagine being a school teacher on a libertarian island?

"Okay, boys and girls, open your books to page 34. That is, if you want to. If you don't want to, you don't have to. You can do whatever you want. This includes distracting the kids who actually do want to learn what's on page 34. If all of you want to play video games, and there aren't enough consoles, then just fight it out. The strongest wins."

Can you imagine being "the help" on a libertarian island?

"I'm not going to clean your house today, Mr. Thiel. I don't feel like doing it. Oh, so you say you aren't going to pay me? Well, then I'll just have to shoot you. There are no laws against it, after all." BANG.

It's not like the idea of libertarian communities hasn't been tried before. There was one, I think it was called Dodge City, somewhere in the American West. Don't quote me, though. I went through a libertarian phase in high school, and I think I missed some classes.

We at "The Gods Are Bored" are all in favor of these expensive libertarian islands in international waters. One down side: An island outside of all national boundaries will have trouble finding any good deity to worship -- and recall that all religions have rules, so religion would be O-U-T, out! However, an expensive libertarian island seems like the perfect dumping ground for morons with money. To hell with taxing American billionaires! If they move to the libertarian island, we'll just smack a hefty tariff on every little thing they want. Pint of Ben & Jerry's? $10,200. Utz potato chips? $7500 an ounce. Don't even get me started on the cost of a T-bone, spring mix salad, truffles and home made apple pie. Why, we could fund two Camden police officers for a year, just on what the libertarian islanders would have to pay for a bag of Tootsie Pops!

Off you go, founder of PayPal and all your billionaire buddies. Off to no-nation waters, your little artificial island, like something out of a "Dr Who" episode. Bon voyage! Please note, though, that if you want to return to America, you will have to get a green card and apply for citizenship all over again. But why would you want to do that? You'll be so very happy in your world with no rules other than the ones you personally choose.

Wow. I so totally see a reality t.v. show in this one. Don't you?

Damn greedy, elitist bastards. Why don't we send them to Elba now, instead of waiting years for their prototypes to launch? Good riddance, they're doing nothing for us anyway.

Welcome to "The Gods Are Bored!" Right up front, gonna apologize for yesterday's politically incorrect post. I don't know what was in my head (besides gin). There's absolutely no reason to berate the moron Chris Christie for his weight. Stupidity knows no size or shape. Meanness and cruelty do not increase with belt length.

In today's mail I received a form letter from the president of the New Jersey Education Association. Depending upon who you ask, this NJEA is either:

A. New Jersey's teacher's union for public school employees, or

B. A cutthroat and devious organization of thugs whose sole purpose is to rob taxpayers and keep bad teachers in classrooms.

Guess which letter Chris Christie would circle. BING! Absolutely correct. "B" it is.

Here's the opening paragraph of the letter, written by Barbara Keshishian, current president of the NJEA:

"We have been under constant attack from a governor who demonizes NJEA and its members at every opportunity. He has attacked us collectively and individually, ignoring the proven successes of the vast majority of New Jersey's public schools while exaggerating the shortcomings of a small number of struggling schools where our colleagues work against difficult odds, and in the most challenging circumstances."

Actually, this is putting it politely. Christie would like nothing better than to do a Wisconsin on NJEA, but he dare not since New Jersey is brimming to the plimsol line with unionized workers in many fields of endeavor.

Envisioning the future of our nation, Republicans like Christie would like to privatize schools and turn them over to corporate interests and religious institutions. These so-called "charter schools" will offer parents an alternative to public education without that pesky private school tuition. While charter schools are required to adhere to the state's curriculum requirements, they are not required to hire certified teachers, and they are not bound by the NJEA.

America, we at "The Gods Are Bored" have been on the front lines of movements several times. The first was in 1981, when our company rolled in a newfangled thing called a word processor, and no one wanted to learn how to use it. We were again on the front lines of the "independent contractor" movement, wherein a company could get the same amount of work from an employee without offering even the most basic benefits, if that employee was agreeable to the bargain.

Charter school teachers are basically independent contractors. I went to night school with a roomful of them. The working conditions they described were horrific. I wouldn't last a day. Most of them were fired after their first year -- literally before they could even dispense with Mr. Bigwand and night school.

There are only two reasons for charter school to exist. Both of them suck.

1. To be able to advance a particular religious or corporate agenda using taxpayer money, or

2. To be able to hire and fire entry-level employees, thus minimizing salaries.

Is this the future of our nation's schools? Higher expectations coupled with lower worker morale?

Oh, gee. Silly me! Why would education be spared the same debacle that has beset the rest of Working America?

Welcome to "The Gods Are Bored," where there's always room for another moron! And plenty are the morons who deserve attention here -- there's never enough time ...

You've probably heard the term "helicopter parent." These are parents who try to micro-manage their kids' lives, especially in high school and college. Snobville is full of such people, only they often miss the forest (kids behaving badly) for the trees (kids excelling in school). God forbid little Biff or Buffy bring home a "C" in cooking class! How can they get into Harvard with that stain on their perfect report card?

I'm totally serious. Snobville High no longer has cooking classes because they were a threat to those all-important GPAs.

This week, helicopter parenting took on a whole new heft here in New Jersey. Our infamous "I'm-going-to-tame-runaway-spending" governor, Chris Christie, found that he might miss his son's varsity baseball game because he had an important meeting with a bunch of Iowa Republicans who came to Trenton to try to get him to lumber for president. ("Run" cannot be used in Christie's case. He couldn't save himself from an attack sloth.) Fearing he might miss the first pitch, Christie hitched a ride in a state police helicopter that flew him to the game. Governor Blimpy then took a limosine for the final 100 yards to the game. Word, the guy cannot walk the length of a football field.

The evil journalists who follow such things made a report, and it got around that Governor Spendthrift does not do as he says. He has since reimbursed the State of New Jersey for use of a state helicopter, but rest assured he wouldn't have bothered if he hadn't been caught out doing it.

Now, I know we are an overweight nation, most of us are overweight at least a little. I stand accused myself on that front. But Governor Christie is not overweight a little. He is obese. They would snap him up for "The Perfect Loser" without even looking at how bad a governor he is. With that in mind, as a citizen of New Jersey, I would like to observe the following:

1. Whatever that helicopter ride cost, Christie ought to have to pay the same surcharge that obese airline passengers have to pay. That chopper must have labored like a mule to get off the ground with Chris Christie inside.

2. Did he reimburse the limo for driving him 100 yards? Same thing. A car works harder when it's weighed down.

People are talking about this man running for president. I say, go ahead and vote him in, Iowa. But before you do, go to your nearest encyclopedia and look at pictures of our American presidents. Out of almost 50 chief executives, I think only Teddy and Taft were fat. Oh, wait. I've seen pictures of Grover Cleveland. He was porky too. Otherwise, weighty matters tend to be decided by men (and soon women) who watch their weight. Even Tricky Dick cut a fine figure in a tux.

Governor, you're a spoiled brat who got caught with his hands -- both of them -- in the state cookie jar. If the rest of us are giving up hard-earned benefits, the least you can do is walk 100 yards ... and for the love of all that is state property, stop this helicopter abuse! Next time use the aircraft carrier. Better fit.

Welcome to "The Gods Are Bored," counting down to Rapture on May 21! Yes, Rapture is scheduled, and we who are longing to be Left Behind can only hope that the 1,235th time is the charm.

The world will end some day. It surely will. You don't need "The Gods Are Bored" to tell you that.

Our planet has undergone several immensely significant extinction events, the most recent being the end of the Age of Dinosaurs. This wasn't a long, slow descent into darkness, but a catastrophic collision with an asteroid.

Think about it. One day, all the rich, varied plethora of dinos were out in their rain forests, munching those pretty big plants and gently nuzzling their babies, and the next day, the Earth said "ouch," and that was that. The large dinosaur species must have disappeared in a matter of months. Months, on a planet that has been rocking on for a couple billion years.

We've got fancy science now that could tell us if another asteroid might be on a collision path with Earth. But could we stop it? Oh yeah, that would get all of us to work together for awhile, or at least to view each other with more empathy. Once the impact occurs, though, it would be every Homo sapiens for himself, and none of us could cope with a sunless sky and the total loss of food crops. We're better organized than the dinosaurs, but we're still too fragile to survive a catastrophic extinction event.

Let's say Earth never gets hit by another asteroid. Well, we at "The Gods Are Bored" still predict that the world will end. The planet is warmed by a star that will change as it ages. One little burp that's bigger than usual will fry us one and all. It's inevitable that changes to the Sun will alter the surface temperatures on Earth beyond the survival capacity of biological life.

It might not even take a Sun burp. Humankind is its own worst enemy. Have you seen the population estimates for this century? Me too. The more crowded we get, the more meat we supply to an opportunistic bacterium or virus. In this era, a sickness that wiped out 90 percent of the population might cause the other 10 percent to die of attrition, since almost everyone on the planet now relies on some basic forms of technology. Would you know how to grow enough food and kill enough meat for ten percent of the people in your home town? Me neither.

We've got the Yellowstone caldera, global climate change, plate tectonics ... ah, face it, our rock is always in peril.

Notice this, however. I predict with 100 percent certainty the end of the world. I do not predict the exact date when it will happen. People who do this are foolish. Your better variety of deities never do it. Even the busy god says He has it on His calendar, but He's not telling anyone when.

The reason for not assigning a specific date to chaos is crystal clear. If you mark it on your calendar, and that day comes and goes with only the usual round of death and misery (off-balanced by birth and joy), you look like a moron. People may begin to doubt your predicting skills. Banquet halls might not want to book your daughter's wedding reception. The dry cleaner won't ask you when you plan to pick up your shirts ... heck, they might not even take your shirts in the first place! If you can't predict the big stuff with certainty, no one will trust you on the details either.

Casinos, however, will roll out the red carpet to you -- as will race tracks. You clearly, dearly love a long shot.

The world will end. Just not on Saturday. How do I know for sure? I don't know for sure. But the odds of me getting up to fix Sunday brunch on May 22 are astronomical. I like a safe bet.

Welcome to "The Gods Are Bored," cursing Facebook one virus at a time! Why, why, why did I ever fall for the latest stupid viral post? If you are my Facebook friend, never believe one thing you see posted by me. I'm about to swear off it for good.

There's a Rapture scheduled for Saturday, and I invite those of you who blog to think about what you might say to anyone who wanders, disillusioned, onto your site in the wake of it. Given the sad history of groups who have made reservations, seen them cancelled, and decided to seek the higher power by committing suicide, this really isn't exactly a laughing matter. (Although, trust me, I'll find some way to be snide about it.)

I was thinking about this Rapture event Sunday afternoon. My daughter The Spare had a choir concert at a local Episcopal church, so I went to hear it. And it was fabulous. There are some upsides to living in Snobville -- everyone else can afford to give their kids singing and music lessons. We even have a bongo player.

Before the concert began, I stared around at the church, which I'd maybe been in one time before. I got to thinking about it. Other than giving blood, I haven't been in a church for a long time. Even the funerals I've gone to in the past few years haven't been held in churches.

An awful lot of beautiful artwork goes into a church, doesn't it? All those stained-glass windows, and carved beams. Eye candy, for sure. Not distracting from the music, but nice to persue in between numbers.

And then the inevitable happened. Except it had been so long since I'd been in a church that I forgot the inevitabilities of every beautiful church building of any pantheon. Namely, you must pay the rent.

A jovial fellow (the music pastor from the church) got up and made a merry little speech about how wonderful it was to have the Snobville choirs perform, but please, as you leave, put a little money in the plate so we can continue to have these concerts. Because,  you see, we need to have the lights on for the concert, and we need the air conditioning, and all that stuff costs money. So be generous.

Well, right up pops my faerie Puck, and that bad thing, he whispers in my ear, "Hey, Anne, there's going to be a bowlful of money at the back of this place, and you need to buy a baby shower gift!"

The brat. Can you believe him?

Seriously, however, I found myself thinking: "It's a beautiful day outside. Why do we need to be in this air-conditioned, lit building anyway? We could have had this concert in the courtyard of Snobville High! No air-conditioning, no lights, no stained glass that needs its weekly Windex, no pews that need their Pledge. Just songs in the air, under the sky.

I know that my tax dollars cover music concerts held inside Snobville High. (The building is pretty run-down, given the average income level, but that's because of the way school taxes are collected here in New Jersey.) Snobville High's auditorium is not air-conditioned. It does have microphones and stage lighting. But they never charge admission to a concert. Nor do they ask for an offering. They sell t-shirts and Hershey bars in the lobby, but that's different. You get something in return for your payout.

Part of what always bothered me about the busy god was this constant plea for rent money. I guess it makes sense to petition the faithful for cash on Sunday morning. But an audience of mostly parents who have come in to hear a concert by their kids? Does this suddenly make me responsible for the air-conditioning all the rest of the time when I'm not in the building?

Needless to say, the church did not get any money from me. Also needless to say, I did not heed Puck's suggestion to line my pockets from the coffers. It's just bad form, bad form, to need money so badly that you stick your hand out for an hour-long concert by the local high school, in which the audience was three-quarters or more parents of same.

Get this. The air conditioning wasn't even on. As I said, it was a beautiful day.

Welcome to "The Gods Are Bored," where today we are going to offer you a modest proposal for an end to collective bargaining in the interest of balanced state budgets.


Almost every state in America is having problems with massive budget deficits. You see, in order to cover state budget deficits in the past, most of our fearless leaders everywhere either dipped into, or failed to fund, pension and benefit plans for state workers. Never mind how the money disappeared. It did, and the Republican solution is to crush the final vestiges of labor unions in order to restore budget stability and keep taxes reasonable. Public employees would be deprived of seniority, tenure, affordable health care, and the right to collective bargaining.

Teachers and other state workers in Wisconsin have converged on the state capital to protest.


I just read on the Huffington Post that the Tea Party is planning a counter-protest, also at Wisconsin's state capital, to be held on Saturday. They're bringing in Joe the Plumber and some presidential hopefuls. Their platform is that bloated government spending must be curbed, and the only way to curb it is to exact major concessions from government workers.

Well, for the love of fruit flies. Here's a simple solution to this dilemma.


The governor of Wisconsin should fire any state employee who has demonstrated or supported the demonstrations for collective bargaining. That dismissed person's job should go to a Tea Party regular. The Tea Party regular should be willing to work for whatever salary and benefits package the state can afford, with no job security and extremely high demands for improved productivity in the workplace. If a Tea Party regular wants to be a teacher, he or she would need to complete state-mandated training, to be done on the employee's own time and at the employee's own expense. While the salary and benefits and security go down, the expectations for student achievement and other state services will be higher than ever.


I mean, really. The lines are already long at Motor Vehicles. Those Tea Party replacements had better be more efficient for smaller paychecks! That's what they want, isn't it?


Oh wait. That's not what they want. They want less government.


Okay, new modest proposal. Fire all the teachers, replace with Tea Party regulars. Close Motor Vehicles completely. Anyone who can drive should be able to drive. Think of the bureaucracy that will reduce and the taxpayer money that will save! And think of all the happy teenagers who will just be able to crawl into the car and go, never having to pass a silly test!


Eliminate all environmental protection through state oversight. We don't need it. All companies have our best interests at heart and would never harm our land.

Last but not least, fire all policemen and firefighters, replace with people who are willing to work for reduced wages and benefits and no job security. I know I'll sleep more peacefully at night, thinking of all the tax dollars my governor has saved me.


Would someone please hand Joe the Plumber an oxygen mask and send him to the next five-alarm fire in a high-rise filled with senior citizens? And staff those ambulances with Tea Party regulars as well! Let's get America running by hiring real Americans, not these commie pinko union workers with their greedy paws in the taxpayer till!


In order to do my part to balance New Jersey's budget, I will now be paying you to take my free advice. Send me an invoice.

Today I was going to post Santa Claus's response to The Spare's Xmas demands,  requests, as listed below. However, when I sat down to type the Jolly Old Elf's letter into this space, I saw a news story that explained how the Republicans successfully blocked a bill that would provide a citizenship status to upwardly mobile young people who came into this country illegally.

I, Anne Johnson, member of the Daughters of the American Revolution, am sickened by this.

Why do people pick up their belongings and leave the countries of their birth for a new, strange land where they don't speak the same language?

 Here's the scenario: "Kiss your abuela goodbye, Juan, we're leaving the Dominican Republic on a whim because we like Big Macs."

Oh, pleeeeze.

Then as now, no one packs up and leaves a native land for any other reason than desperation. This nation has always welcomed the desperate of other places, and those immigrants have made our country vibrant, interesting, and the envy of the planet. Now, even though our population is diminishing, the Republicans want us to deport people. Not just slackers, but serious young people who would not only become part of our intellectual pool, but who would also vote Republican, because so many of them espouse the values of the religious right.

Every year I teach persuasive essay-writing, and every year I get a student or two who writes about seeing a cousin, brother, father, deported. I remember one girl who wrote so hauntingly about a cousin of hers who had been accepted to college, who spoke no Spanish, who had been in America since she was eight years old. On the eve of moving in at her dorm, she was deported to the Dominican Republic, where she had no immediate family and no knowledge of the native language.

Just so you Red Ebenezer Scrooges know, you will be adding that poor would-be American to the long chain of sins you have visited upon the working class in America. I hope this vote comes back to haunt you. I hope that the growing number of Hispanic voters in this nation stay firmly in the Democratic ranks. You Red morons are sending "home" the very people who would vote for your conservative agenda -- good Roman Catholics who believe in the values of hard work and self-sufficiency. Oh yeah. Let's send them home to the DR and Mexico!

Do you Republican numbskulls know how hard I have to work to make absolutely certain my Pagan family values don't seep out into my classroom? The people you're deporting think the way you do. My students would be mortified to know they were being taught by a Pagan. They and their families are "God and country" all the way.

Go ahead. Send them home. The word "moron" does not begin to describe you. That foot you're shooting? *snort* It's yours.

Welcome to "The Gods Are Bored," where we are blissfully free of the peskiest varieties of vermin! We've seen many unwelcome bug and mammal infestations here at Chateau Johnson, but just now things are pretty calm ... except for the fruit flies. And we love fruit flies! So all is well.

I'm sure you've read or heard that a certain particularly despicable vermin is making a comeback. That would be your bed bug. Or, not your bed bug, I hope. Someone else's bed bug. May the bored gods protect all my readers from bed bug infestations!

There was an article on Yahoo about the mounting bed bug problems, especially in the big cities. The article was factual and gave a few tepid tips on how to rid yourself of the little nocturnal bloodsuckers. I did a quick perusal of the subject matter, noting that people have been carting bed bugs home from movie theaters and department store dressing rooms. Well, that sounds reasonable enough to me. If you can cart a cockroach home in a bag of groceries, and a tick home on the back of Fifi or Fluffy, you could just as easily wind up with a bed bug on your jeans, if you draped them over a fitting room chair.

Bed bugs are making a comeback.

You know the expression. "Good night, sleep tight. Don't let the bed bugs bite." Ever wonder about it? The "sleep tight" part stems from an era when mattresses were suspended by ropes. If the ropes were tight, you slept better, because the mattress didn't sag.

Have you ever seen a rope bed in use? Me neither. Sometimes you see them at antique stores. No one buys them. Hence, the "sleep tight" is probably an old, old saying. And the bed bug part too. They've been around, these bed bugs, for a long time.

I don't have any free advice on how to rid yourself of a bed bug infestation. I know I cleared my house of a bad mouse problem by adopting Alpha, a cat who had lived in a dumpster for an unspecified period of time. But there's no peppy pet you can adopt to send the bed bugs packing. If we got them here at Chateau Johnson, I would probably just wring my hands helplessly and get bitten.

If you scare up Yahoo and look for the bed bug article http://shine.yahoo.com/channel/health/4-places-bedbugs-hide-and-how-to-avoid-them-2371120/which I've tried to link here, probably with scanty success, let me tell you something. The comments are better than the article. To date there are more than 450, most of them displaying thoughts and beliefs that do not encourage faith in humankind. Random samples:

* If you go to Wildwood, NJ, don't stay at the *** ***** Hotel. Those things will pick you up and carry you to the toilet in the middle of the night.

*The worst bed bug is in the white house and he is sucking out our blood.

*These come from illegal immigrants. Everyone knows Mexico is filthy. Those people are bringing in the bugs, and we're letting them.

*It's no wonder bed bugs are in hotels. That's where the foreigners stay, and everyone knows foreigners aren't as clean as Americans, especially people from the Middle East.

And on and on and on like this! I only read about the first 50, and all four of the above were there. Of course some reasonable comments followed, in which sensible writers pointed out correctly that bed bugs are equal opportunity vermin, completely disconnected from the sanitary conditions around them. These voices of reason get shouted down in that comment thread by morons who insist that bed bugs are riding around on the bodies of illegal immigrants and Middle Easterners, and anyone who suggests otherwise is a no-good liberal who ought to have swarms of bed bugs leeching every last drop of blood from his blue body!


You can learn a lot about people by how they source an infestation of insects in their homes.

Here at Chateau J, we've had a bad infestation of fleas in the past. I blamed the handyman who was fixing our kitchen. It couldn't have been my cats Alpha and Beta running around the yard! No way. They'd never gotten fleas that bad before. Trust me, you've got to keep these white, Christian, Vietnam veterans out of your home.

When I lived in Baltimore, in several different apartments, I was surrounded and confounded by cockroaches everywhere. Not a single living space I could find was free of them. Well, we all know that extremely intelligent people don't practice good hygiene. And after all, I was a student at Johns Hopkins. Know where those roaches came from? The briefcases of some of the finest minds in this country, that's where! Keep your kids away from the Ivy League, and if you can't, don't let them bring their luggage home with them. Make them strip in the front yard, do a cavity search, and only then let them inside for the parental hug. Smart people are buggy people! Word.

Which brings me to my final example of how despicable insects invade your home through human hosts.

There must be a whopper of a hornet nest in my attic. Can't see it, because that same handyman (uh oh) built a room on the third floor for The Heir. For about five years I've seen big-ass wasps fluttering in and out under the roof eaves. This, I tell you, is directly related to Halliburton. Some of the tar in those roofing shingles was probably fondled by Dick Cheney. Need I say more? The dude is a human wasp, isn't he? How else could I have gotten wasps in my roofing?

The moral of this sermon is that you have to watch out what kind of people you deal with. You could get bugs, and of course it would never just be by chance or bad luck.

Pinky swear, if I get bed bugs in this house, I'm going to haul Glenn Beck to court for extermination fees! He's got 'em, you can tell. Don't let the suits and hair fool you. At home he's a slob. With foreign friends, illegal household help, and sheets he stole from a hotel in Wildwood, NJ.

Warm welcome to "The Gods Are Bored," your little oasis of Pagan humor in the vast sea of Serious Thinking! I'm your host, Anne Johnson, restored to good spirits with a little old dose of sanity.

Whew. Sanity has gotten expensive! Have you noticed? When it was prescription, I could get my health plan to pay for it. Then it went generic and got even more affordable. Now that anyone can get it over-the-counter, a good dose of sanity sets you back a bundle.

Oh shit. Was I talking about sanity, or Zyrtec? Silly me! Zyrtec is the more expensive item. Sanity comes from within -- and from without, a gift from the bored God or Goddess of your choice.

We all really know what the best medicine is, though. Don't we? LOL, ROTFL LMPAO. (Pagan)

A funny thing about the Internet is that, if you keep a diary, its entries never really grow old. This blog is almost five years old (wow), and I get comments from people who are still reading my rants of yesteryear. Here are some topical favorites from ages hence, in no particular order:

KEPT WOMEN

Early on in the history of TGAB, I wrote a post about women who didn't have to work because their husbands brought in all the bread. I called it Kept Women. And has it ever gotten the hits! Time to trot that old topic out again and freshen it.

With the economy the way it is now, I'm betting that there are far fewer Kept Women of every kind than there were in 2005. Even my neighborhood's Alpha Kept Woman had to go get a job at Barnes & Noble when her husband was let go from his six-figure salary. Let's face it. Chances are these days that there are almost as many Kept Men as Kept Women. It's a cold, cruel world out there if you aren't one of the tiny fraction of people who control all the money.

So on the matter of Kept Women, I wax nostalgic and say yes, I was bitter about their riches and their ability to devote themselves heart and soul to the PTA. But now that so many of them are slapping FOR SALE signs on their mansions, I say, "Woe are they! Have mercy, Bored Gods!"

RHODESIAN RIDGEBACKS

You know what makes people boil over in nasty ways? Insult their dogs. I wrote a post about how a fellow with a foursome of Rhodesian Ridgebacks got into some hot water with his neighbors and friends when the fluffy little pooches did a little friendly gnawing on various human limbs. I'll bet I've heard from two dozen kindly people who assure me that Rhodesian Ridgebacks might as well be Beanie Babies, they're that docile. If you own one of these purebred canines, will you do me a favor? Love it to death, but don't expect everyone else to. Especially my friend with the permanent scar on her shoulder, put there by the bite of a Beanie Baby.

Don't get me wrong. I like dogs. I like them the way I like jelly beans -- all mixed up with different colors and flavors. The better mixed the mutt, the more I like it. If you don't agree, why are you here? Go browse the Westminster Kennel Club site or that puppy mill in the next county.

TEABAGGERS

Okay. Truthfully, I've never written about teabaggers before. How did I miss this blue ribbon chance to hand out moron badges? No offense to these well-meaning village idiots, but do they ever wonder about the fearless leaders they take their marching orders from? Like, who is telling them to oppose helping the poor and sick? Can't be Jesus. Last time I looked, anyway, which has been awhile. Maybe someone ripped into the Bible and gave it an edit, better to reflect the agenda of Corporate America. I guess that's probably it. Pray and grow rich, then you won't need government health care -- and damn to hell anyone who does! They just didn't pray to grow rich!

If you are uninsured, get on this right away. Pray to be rich. Not to a bored god, though. He or She will see right through you.

OTHER SCUM

I'm trying to think of other ridiculous people, places, and things to insult, so that idle Googlers find what I've written and take me to task. Come on and help me out here, friends! Give me TARGETS. Not the usual stuff like Wal-Mart and Rush Limbaugh. Weird stuff with a small following, like Moms Who Make Their Teens Wear GPS Trackers. I don't know. Let's get creative! I like being told off by a Kept Woman who just got back from having her Rhodesian Ridgeback groomed and is just dropping onto the Net for a minute before her tennis lesson. Her husband never lost his job because he's in the Strategic Planning Sector at Blue Cross.

Yes, I'm Anne. Back, bad, and taking self pity to the mat! No day without a faerie! Top that!

Welcome to "The Gods Are Bored," your highway to heaven ... lots of them! Don't book with a busy carrier. Fly the friendlier skies!

That is, if you can fly at all. You won't get off the East Coast of America today.

Every now and then, in February in New Jersey, we get these crappy wind-blown rainstorms called Nor'Easters. And when we get them, we always say, "Oh well, at least it's not cold enough for it to be snow. Because if this was snow, we'd be buried.

Today it's snow. And we at TGAB are buried. We've got two feet and counting. The Shrine of the Mists is totally obliterated.

There's a bored god in the back yard. He blends in pretty well with the background. His name is Aisoyimstan. He is a God of snow, blown in from the wilds of Montana. I just invited Him in for a frosty mug of root beer. Let's give a freezy feisty "Gods Are Bored" welcome to Aisoyimstan, sacred to the Plains Indians of America!

Anne: Aisoyimstan! What's with the snowstorms? This is the second whopper we've had in New Jersey this year!

Aisoyimstan: I hope this doesn't shake your faith in global climate change.

Anne: Oh heck no! Every winter used to be like this when I was a kid! Now this kind of snowy weather is the exception, not the norm. Is it still the norm in Montana, o snowy God? ... Aisoyimstan? Aisoyimstan? ....

Well, one can hardly expect a God of snow to hang out inside a warm house! I'll have to light a candle ... err ... leave a few well-crafted icicles on the Shrine of the Mists in honor of this worthy deity!

Just remember, readers, that one cold winter doesn't alter an otherwise clear warming trend. Of course, if you're Bill O'Reilly or Rick Santorum, all it takes is one snowfall to set things right. But they're morons. The rest of us have sense enough to be concerned about the future of Aisoyimstan and other bored gods of the realms of snow.

Okay, now it's time to hitch Decibel the Parrot up to the shovel and set him to work on the driveway. Can't sit here and count on school being closed on Monday. Come here, birdy!